With the introduction of the new iPod with video I am getting asked a lot of questions to how and where to get video to work on the new iPod. Well of course you can buy music videos, shorts movies, video podcasts and TV shows from the iTunes Music Store. But what if you want other sources or want to convert your DVDs for use on the iPod. Well here is a post that should answer many of your questions. Or at least give you suggestions to add to what you may already have tried. Much of what is contained in this post is also scattered about in my tip section. I thought I would write a more complete post to address the questions I have been getting lately.

Take your movies with you. Remember the iPod has the capability of playing movies on TVs as well as allowing you to view them on the small screen of the iPod. Going on a trip? Watch your one of your favorite movies from a DVD on the plane, and maybe watch another in your hotel room on the TV in your room.

Playing Your iPod Stored Movies on a TV
Many TVs around today have video and audio inputs. Some even have them right on the front of the TV.

There are two types of video inputs the iPod can work with, S-Video (also know as S-VHS or Y/C) or composite video. In order for you to connect the iPod video to these inputs you will need either the optional iPod Apple AV cable or an the iPod Universal dock. Either S-Video or composite from the iPod will work fine. The S-Video is a bit better in video quality as it splits luminance (brightness part of TV signal) and chroma (color information) which yeilds a bit sharper picture. The choice is which accessories you get andhw at the TV has for AV inputs. Many TVs have composite video and audio inputs on the front and may have additional input in the rear that includes a S-Video input. Also not many in-vehicle entertainment centers also include AV inputs for playback on the built-in TV monitors in cars and vans.

The iPod AV Cable ($19 from Apple) provides composite video and audio output for viewing photo slideshows with music on a TV. The iPod AV Cable is easy to throw in a bag for travel.

The Apple iPod Universal Dock ($39 from Apple) works with all iPod models that have a dock connector, so if you own more than one iPod, you can keep just one Dock connected to your computer, stereo or TV.

The iPod Universal Dock has an S-Video connector on the rear. You will need an S-Video cable (not included, think Radio Shack) and either the iPod AV cable or a 1/8 inch stereo plug to two RCA “Y” cable (Radio Shack) to connect to a TV with S-Video. If you plan on doing this often in your house this is a great solution and with the addition of the Apple Remote ($29 from Apple) it allows you to stay seated when you want to start, pause, and adjust volume.

This is the same remote Apple ships with the iMac G5 with built-in iSight camera that includes Front Row.

OK, now you know how to play video on the iPod, on a TV from the iPod and even in a car or van. Now where can you get the content other than the iTunes Music Store? Well how about from your own DVD collection. You probably have many DVDs in your collection you might like to use with the iPod.

Converting DVDs to Play on iPod Using Handbrake
OS X users have access to a great free application called Handbrake that makes converting DVDs for use on the iPod easy. Sorry, there is no Windows version of HandBrake.

Download and install Handbrake for OS X. Load in your DVD and launch HandBrake.

HandBrake needs to scan the DVD before it can do anything else. The scan dialog shows up on launch so you can pick up a DVD device, or you can browse to folder with VIDEO_TS you might have extracted from a DVD using MacTheRipper. In fact if Handbrake has any problem scanning a DVD (not too often), try “ripping” the DVD with MacTheRipper first and then use Handbrake for encoding from the VIDEO_TS folder.

Scan
Click Open button and HandBrake will start DVD scan. The scan process checks for information about the titles, chapters and languages on your DVD.

HandBrake main window is made up of different panels. Let’s go thru them together.

Source
DVDs usually have one or more titles. For a movie, the longest one is usually the movie itself. This is the one we will want to rip and encode to MPEG4. In the Source panel select the DVD title, the longest is the first of the list. Choose this one.

Destination
In the Destination panel select MP4 file format. Select MPEG-4 / AAC or H.264 / AAC from the drop down menu for use on the iPod and QuickTime. OK, so what’s the differences? The iPod can play either of these file formats. The differences are that MPEG-4 will encode faster, have a slightly larger file size, and be a bit better on your iPods battery life as it is less processor intensive. H.264 will take longer to encode (may be real long on an older computer), will yield a smaller file size and a better picture quality. For H.264 make sure to choose Baseline Profile. Experiment and decide what is better for you.

Please note that QT 6 supports MPEG-4 / AAC and QT 7 supports both MPEG-4 / AAC and H.264 / AAC. AVI file format and OGM file format can not be played back using QuickTime or iPod. You can rename the file to something better than “Movie”.

Video
In the Video panel, if using MPEG-4 choose the encoder, I suggest FFmpeg instead of XviD, as both are MPEG-4 compliant encoders, FFmpeg is usually faster on OS X. If using H.264 make sure to use Baseline profile. H.264 will take longer to encode but will yield better quality and a smaller file size.

Set Frame-rate to Default. You should keep the frame-rate the same as the source material.

Select CD Target size for full movie. Choose your Average Bitrate 700 for the iPod.

Select 2-pass encoding, it will take longer but will give better quality compression. Use it except if you really care about the encoding time.

Subtitles
Select none if you intent to play this on an iPod as the size would be too small to read anyway. If you intent to encode for playback on a Mac, select subtitle language if you want them.

Audio
In the Audio panel select language you want and audio sample rate (default 44100) and Bitrate (default 128).

Picture Settings
Click on Picture Settings button.

The Picture settings window will open.

Resize Width and Height keeping the aspect ratio. For the iPod 320×240 is fine for 4:3 aspect ratio, this is what the iTunes Music Store uses

The iPod can playback larger sized video than 320×240. Apple says that the iPod video can support MPEG4 file formats up to 480×480 at 30 frames per second. In reality it is related to the number of pixels that are supported. Example: 480×480 = 230,400 pixels. 720×304, keeping the aspect ratio of the DVD, comes to 218,880, which is less. So this can work. But remember that larger size means more space taken up on your iPod and Mac. Also using Handbrake H.264 320×240 is the correct size. If the video is not 4:3 aspect ratio just use 320 wide and allow whatever height works for the content. You can always turn off “wide screen” on the iPod.

Crop
Crop image to remove any black outline borders. Using Auomatic button usually works fine.

De-Interlace
Deinterlaced picture if movie has visible scanlines. I usually deinterlace all of them as computers use progressive scan and television uses interlacing.

Next button and useless openGL effects, what does it do? It allows you to see select images from the DVD to help you decide on cropping etc. You can try it.

Summary of Handbrake Settings for the iPod
MPEG-4 (FFmeg) or H.264 (Baseline Profile)
Framerate = same as source
Target Bitrate for video = 700+ (iPod only supports up to 768)
Check 2-pass encoding
Audio 44.1 khz/128 kbps up to 48 khz/160 kbps
Keep the aspect ratio is usually defaulted “on”
For 4:3 (most TV shows and some DVD movies) use 320×240 for H.264
For 4:3 you can go a bit larger for MPEG-4 (480×480 is iPod spec)
For 16×9 content scale to 320 and the height may be around 144

iPod video specs
H.264:
File formats: .m4v, .mp4 or .mov
Video data rate: 768 Kbps
Profile: Baseline
Frame size: 320 x 240
Framerate = up to 30 fps
Audio data rate: 160 Kbps
Audio sample rate: 48 Khz stereo

MPEG -4:
File formats: .m4v, .mp4 or .mov
Video data rate: 2.5 mbps
Profile: Simple
Frame size: 480 x 480
Framerate = up to 30 fps
Audio format: AAC-LC
Audio data rate: 160 Kbps
Audio sample rate: 48 Khz stereo

Let-ur-Rip
Click on Rip button to start encoding, a progress bar show encoding, fps speed and time remaining. Go have some coffee this will take awhile.

Encoding can be paused, resumed or cancelled.

Tip:
Make sure to let HandBrake finish encoding. It may say 100%, but its not actually finished, so you must wait until it’s really finished encoding.

After you are finished encoding rename the file if you have not already to something other than “Movie.”

If you want a simpler Handbrake see: Handbrake Lite Makes DVD-to-iPod Simple. This is a “lite” version of Handbrake for converting to iPods.

Add to iTunes Library
You can “Add to Library” in iTunes. Your video should now show up in the special playlist in iTunes called “Videos”. When you buy Music Videos, TV Shows, and Movies from the iTunes Music Store the purchased videos will download into iTunes special Videos playlist.

When you sync your iPod with video and look inside the Videos menu on your iPod you will see the following choices:

Video Playlists
Movies
Music Videos
TV Shows
Video Podcasts
Video Settings

You can easily add your own videos to iTunes. You may find that Music Videos you get from the Internet and add to your iTunes Library, will probably just show up in the “Movies” list on your iPod. Here is how you get “Music Videos” to show up in the “Music Videos” list on your iPod.

ID3 Tags
Next, add the ID3 tags so you will have Title, Album, etc. Using iTunes to do this is easy. Highlight the audio file in the iTunes Library, and Control + mouse click (right click for you multi-buton mouse users) and choose Get Info. Fill out the information adding the title, artist, genre, etc.

Under the Options tab in the ID3 Tag you will find a field for Video Kind. Just change it from Movie to Music Video.

Now when you sync your iPod video the Music Videos you added to iTunes will show up in the correct place.

The advantage of getting all your Music Videos to show up in the correct list is when playing them back you can have a random playback of all your Music Videos. When playing videos back on your iPod video from the “Movies” menu, you do not get continuous play. It is a one at a time action.

iTunes 6.02 now allows you to also change the Video Kind located under the Option Menu to include TV Shows. Before this release you where only allowed to change it to either Movie or Music Video. Only TV Shows bought from iTunes Music Store came with the Video Kind set to TV Shows.

Note: You can not change this setting on videos purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

Sync to your iPod. You are done. Most of these DVDs will be compressed down to about 600 MB to 1 GB each which is at least a quarter or less than the original DVD. If you have a 30 GB or 60 GB iPod you can carry quite a few full length movies.

TV Shows on Your iPod
If you are looking to put TV shows on your iPod, consider Elgato’s EyeTV. This is a “killer” PVR for the Mac that can record TV to MPEG4 for the iPod. See my EyeTV review.

TiVo has also announced software to allow syncing content from your TiVo to the iPod.

Content From the Web
Websites are beginning to crop up specializing in video content. GUBA is a usenet search site that provides easy access to usenet pictures and videos that include iPod compatible. The site offers all sorts of content which include TV shows, music videos, comedy, SciFi, cartoons, documentaries, and even adult material. They charge a subscription of $14.95 per month to access their entire catalog. But they offer free samples in each category for you to download. You simply download the video in the iPod compatible format, add it to your iTunes library, and sync your iPod. Watch the video.

There are some “public domain” iPod compatible movies available. Try Public Domain Torrents. They offer classic movies and B-movies for free with new ones added every week!

You can use P2P sharing applications like Acquisition, Poisoned, Limewire, or BitTorrent to find video content. There is no end to what you can find this way. Everything from rare TV clips, bloopers, music videos, concerts, sitcoms, movies, etc. As I am not an attorney, you may want to check the legality of this type of downloading. There will be a fairly good time investment in this method in finding the content, downloading it and converting it to a format the iPod can play. No way as easy as iTunes Music Store.

Much of the video found this way will probably not be in a format that is not iPod friendly and need to be converted. Lucky there are some free or inexpensive tools that will work for you. Many of the videos you will find on the Internet will be in the MPG (MPEG) format. This must be converted to be used on the iPod.

Converting MPEG Videos
MPEG video is a stream and the audio and video is multiplexed. If you try using QuickTime Pro 7.03 ($29.99) most times you will get video minus audio when converting using Export -> Movie to iPod. These videos can be used on the iPod with video and still get the audio. But you will need a different tool to convert them. OS X users have a nice free application for this use.

Here’s how:
Download MPEG Streamclip (free). MPEG Streamclip is an application that can convert MPEG files QuickTime. The latest version 1.5.1 now includes a new MPEG-4 exporter with H.264 support and is now compatible with the iPod. This shortens the process for getting video on your iPod.

MPEG Streamclip File Menu

Simply launch MPEG Streamclip, open file into MPEG Streamclip (Open Files under File Menu), and choose to Export to QuickTime. You can decide which codec and settings you want to use and where to save it. To use on the iPod with video, I usually use Apple’s MPEG4 Compressor at 100% quality, De-Interlace, 320X240. Experimenting with settings is encouraged.

MPEG Streamclip Export Options (new Export option for the iPod)

Some video you find on the Internet may be in AVI, QuickTime (.mov), DivX (need to install DivX codec (see read me with MPEG Streamclip), or DV format. MPEG Streamclip can play, edit and export MOV, DV, AVI, MP4 files for use on the iPod.

Your Own Movies
What if you want to watch your own home movies recorded on your Digital Video camera or your Digital Still camera as many record MPEG 4 clips now. Maybe you want to use a movie you edited in iMovie or Final Cut Pro. Well if QuickTime Pro can play these videos it can usually export them to an iPod friendly format. If your video is a MP4, DV, or .MOV format using QuickTime Pro ($29.99 from Apple) you can convert these for use on the iPod.

If you are using Final Cut Pro you do not need to own QuickTime Pro. You can just export your sequence to a QuickTime movie and follow the same instructions as QuickTime Pro.

New Tip:
As of iTunes 6.02, Apple has added a new function in iTunes that allows you to convert QuickTime movies located in your iTunes Library for the iPod with no need to own QuickTime Pro. Simply Control + click (or right mouse click for multi-button users) on video in your iTunes Library and choose “Convert Selection for iPod”.

Convert QuickTime Movies Using QuickTime Pro
Find the converted video on your hard drive, open it up in QuickTime Pro, and then use Quicktime Pro to convert the video into an iPod-compatible format, m4v (MPEG-4) video.

Just use QuickTime Pro File menu -> Export

Pick Movie to iPod (320×240) from the list. This will give your video a .m4v file extension. Just rename it to whatever you like and “Save the exported file as.” This will leave your original video untouched.

Now just add it to your iTunes Library and it should play just fine in iTunes and on your iPod with video.

Alternate Method for Converting QuickTime
Ok, you do not have QuickTime Pro and want to save some money. Check out iSquint a free iPod video conversion application.

Podner ($10 shareware) and MoviesForMyiPod (free) are two other solutions for converting the videos on your hard drive for use on the iPod. Both are simple an inexpensive as compared to QuickTime Pro ($29.99).

Podner from Splasm

Forty-Two DVDVX Plus
Another great application for converting video for playback on mobile phones, handheld video players, the Sony PSP, and the iPod video is Forty-Two DVDVX Plus, $19.99, OS X only. It features simple settings and a familiar interface (looks like iTunes) will allow you to get up and running in minutes. What I like the best about Forty-TwoDVD-VXPlus is job queue. You add your files, set your desired options and press the covert button and go have coffee. Forty-Two DVDVX Plus will go through each video file and covert them one by one without your interaction and add them to your iTunes Library, Movie folder, or a folder of your choice.

You can transcode from DVD Folders, VOB, Mpeg1/2, (S)VCD images and some types of Windows Media Player and Video for Windows files. (Windows Media 9/10 WMA3/WMV3 codecs supported when Flip4Mac WMV is installed). Forty-Two DVDVX Plus is a Universal Binary, ready and tested on Apple’s new Intel Core Duo platform or on PPC.

Forty-Two DVDVX Plus has a built-in media player but what it does not do is give you the ability to do simple edits like pick an in or an out point to encode from and to. The free MPEG Streamclip does this. You can edit the video in QuickTime Pro first I guess.

Convert WMV Files for iPod
What if the video you want to use on the iPod is in WMV (Windows Media) format? Can you play this on an iPod? Sure you can if you convert first.

Download and install WMV Player Pro $49 (free trial). This application will allow you to play Windows Media files (WMV) right in QuickTime Pro. You then can export the WMV file to an iPod compatible movie. Just follow the instructions for exporting to the iPod above with QuickTime Pro.

Converting Video on Your Desktop
What if you want to capture full motion videos of your OS X desktop. This is really handy if you are creating a how to for an application or want to capture a video you can not save otherwise like a Flash web video or a streamed video. Maybe you need this to create the ultimate training podcast.

Snapz Pro X $69, OS X only allows for QuickTime full motion video of anything on your screen, complete with digital audio, and an optional microphone voiceover. You choose to include the cursor or not. Snapz X Pro can save movies in just about any format that QuickTime can handle. After you are finished capturing the video, you can edit it in iMovie or Final Cut Pro. Then simply follow the same instructions for exporting the video for an iPod format above.

How to use Snapz Pro X tutorials in QuickTime of course.

I hope this answers many of your questions for finding content and getting it to play on your new iPod. These are by no means the only methods for finding and converting video. I am sure a book can be written about this… In fact I bet several ARE written and for sale already! I hope this post gives newbies and maybe even some more advanced users some ideas and information. As for Windows users there are some applications to do the similar things as I outline here. Since I am more Mac-centric when it comes to multimedia I have not tried them all. I have used some Windows apps to convert video for playing on a Pocket PC cell phone.

Windows Options
Videora iPod Converter, free is a decent application can compress to MPEG -4 and H.264, is an ok (and pretty fast) iPod video utility for Windows users. This does not however rip the video from DVDs like Handbrake does on OS X.

Cucusoft DVD Ripper does similar things that MPEG Streamclip does but it is NOT free or open source.

I am sure the iTunes Music Store will be adding plenty of new video content. There are more video podcasts being offered everyday as the iPod creates the next wave in this evolution. So finding entertaining and educational content is getting easier. How long will it be until event videographers will be post a blog for video podcasts of your wedding, anniversary, birthday, graduation, party, etc for your friends and relatives to watch. Hint, to all my video professional readers… Sounds like a needed service.

Now if you are lucky enough to own the new iMac that includes Apple’s Front Row software you will be closer to the convergence of computer and your TV. If you have an older Mac you may be interested in the Apple Front Row For Your Mac post on this website to enhance your Digital LifeSyle.

    | Tags: convert, dvd, iPod, Video